PROJECTS

Project areas: Education, Rural development, Environment

In February 2009, the Ford Foundation awarded a grant for Aga Khan Foundation, Mozambique to provide training, technical assistance and scholarship funds to transform the Agrarian School of Bilibiza into an educational institution of excellence. Project activities include improving school facilities and creating a more advanced curriculum that is relevant to priority issues in the region. 

To increase the school’s self-sustainability, plans for a goat breeding program, an aviary and additional farms are already underway. Professors and students conduct field trials of new agricultural techniques, such as the planting of disease-resistant varieties indigenous to Mozambique, crop diversification, inter-cropping and composting. The program has also sprayed diseased cashew trees and revitalized old trees with high quality grafts which involved hundreds of farmers.

The project is partnering and sharing its best practices with various funders, NGOs and that country's Ministry of Education and Culture to ensure that improvements produce lasting results.